


Echoes

by commas_and_ampersands



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Dementors, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-23 12:36:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18549901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commas_and_ampersands/pseuds/commas_and_ampersands
Summary: The figure itself isn't altogether disturbing.  It seems like something standard out of a watered-down American ghost story.  A hooded, floating figure craning it's torso around a light post, the edges of it's cloak trailing away from the form like cigarette smoke.





	Echoes

**Author's Note:**

> Written December 2008; some revisions April 2019.
> 
> Inspired by [this image](https://www.deviantart.com/spec-/art/Ghost-4544679).
> 
> Takehiko is a name that was given to Kunzite's reincarnation in [The Exiles](http://www.dotmoon.net/library_view.php?storyid=9) by Starsea. I liked it so much, I stole it and continued to steal it with permission because seriously, it's a good name.

A phone call from anyone else saying that something had happened to Takehiko might not have been enough to bring her home.  He's stronger than he looks, and he already reminds casual observers of a monolith at first glance.  He doesn't need her to baby him, and she doesn't have the luxury to flee her modeling gig the Netherlands because of a sick boyfriend.

But the phone call didn't come from anyone else.  It came from Mamoru.  A man she's never initiated a civil conversation with outside of dire-world ending emergencies and vice versa.  He can't hide the worry in his voice, and even if he could, he called her.  On purpose.

She doesn't even wait for details before making her decision.  She cancels the shoot, catches the red eye, and flies back to Japan with the urgency she knows this situation deserves.

When she arrives in Tokyo, she scarcely has the patience to wait for her checked baggage before heading to Mamoru's.  He's left the door open, so she goes right in, dropping everything she doesn't need in the foyer.

The moment Mamoru lays eyes on her, he rushes to her and moves as though he is going to touch her.  He rethinks this almost immediately.  They touch as often as they speak, which is to say, not at all.

"I'm glad you came," he says.  The lines around his eyes soften a fraction, and this is how she knows he's sincere.

"Tell me what happened.  What did this to him?"  She knows better than to ask 'who.'

Mamoru runs a hand through his hair.  He doesn't look like he's showered in a while.  "We don't know what it is."  He sighs.  "Judging by how he looks, I'm not sure I want to know."

"Yeah, this is how not to reassure the girlfriend."

"Sorry," he mutters hastily, digging into his pockets.  He unfolds a piece of paper that's been refolded a dozen times and hands it to her.  "He won't say much, but he drew this."

Minako's jaw aches with the effort to hold her frown, but she can't relax her face looking at the image.  The figure itself isn't altogether disturbing.  It seems like something standard out of a watered-down American ghost story.  A hooded, floating figure craning it's torso around a light post, the edges of it's cloak trailing away from the form like cigarette smoke.  What does unsettle her is the style in which it's drawn.  Takehiko doodles on occasion, but it's always straight lines and uniformity, distant buildings and geometric patterns.  She doesn't like the curves and uncertainty in this drawing.  It isn't him.

She gives it back like it's threatening to bite.  Judging by the reluctance Mamoru shows in taking it back, he's equally upset by the image.  "We don't know what it is, where it came from, or what it wants."

"I don't care," Minako snaps.  "At least not right now.  What did it do to him?"

"No one can say for sure because no one else was there.  He just appeared in the middle of my bedroom without warning.  I tried to talk to him, but all he did was walk to the corner and sit down.  He stared at me, but he won't talk to me.  Or to anyone else."  He deflates.  His head hangs.  Somehow, all of him just hangs.  "I don't know.  I don't know what happened out there."

Minako's lips press together in a firm line.  "Are they hunting it?"

"Yes."

"Do they know how to kill it?"

"They'll figure it out," Mamoru assures her in a tone that makes her wonder if the others received their first order from the future king a few hours earlier.

She'd be annoyed about that - the Senshi are not his to command - but it's not as though she'd have told them any different.  It's a consideration for another time.  She needs intel.  She needs to check on Takehiko.  She needs to join the hunt.  It can wait.

She turns in the direction of the bedroom.  "What makes you think I'll have better luck getting him to talk?  You're his leader."

Mamoru blinks, face twisting in confusion.  "But he loves you."

She considers saying something, but swallows it.

There's a reason they don't talk.

She marches into the bedroom without another word.  The floorboards beneath the tacky carpet creak and the doorknob shocks her when she touches it, but she never breaks stride.  She closes the door behind her, and she doesn't care that Mamoru probably minds.

Takehiko's sitting in a corner, just as Mamoru described.  His body language doesn't look as though he's in distress.  He doesn't hold his knees against his chest and he isn't curled into the fetal position.  He looks perfectly relaxed, albeit with usual perfect posture.  If Mamoru hadn't told her something was wrong, she might not notice anything at this distance.

Then she takes three more steps and sees his eyes.  It's like a kick to her stomach that breaks her ribs.  She's seen those ghosts and shadows before in the middle of the night, when he wakes up from nightmares and forgets he's been forgiven.  They're echoes of a darker time, a past they would all like to forget but need to remember.  She's turned into a lighter sleeper since they've been together.

She always begins with 'I love you.'  She does the same thing now.

He doesn't look at her, but he speaks.  "You came back."

She sits down opposite him, tucking her legs beneath her like a child.  "Mamoru called."

Even shaken, he reads more into the statement than anyone else would.  "Scare you?"

"Terrified," she confirms.  "He doesn't like that you won't talk to him."

His eyes jerk shut.  It's not better, not being able to see his haunted, hunted gaze.  "I can't."

"I know," she whispers gently.  "I know that look."

Moreover, she knows the guilt that goes with it.  The guilt for what he did to Endymion in the Silver Millennium and then to Mamoru when the Dark Kingdom rose again.  It's a subject he and Mamoru have only broached once.  It ended with slammed doors and a broken lamp.  It's one of two obstacles in their relationship.  In both cases, the men have more or less decided to look the other way.

She's the other one.

She reaches out to touch his cheek, but he shies away.  Refusing her touch is never a good sign.  "Tell me."

His eyes open again.  He looks past her, remembering.  For a moment, she entertains the fancy that she can turn her head and see what he is seeing if only she looks from the perfect angle.  Then he starts speaking, and she must pay attention to the words.

"I was out patrolling.  Restless.  Missed you."  She itches to take his hand, but he won't let her.  She knows.  "The street was deserted, but it had been like that most of the night.  All of a sudden it got cold.  I thought I was imagining things, but then I saw my breath and the road got slick with ice.  Then I turned around and saw it."

Minako dislikes the implication of Takehiko's story quite a bit.  He didn't see it coming.  He has more hyper-vigilance than any of them.  If it can sneak up on Takehiko, it can sneak up on all of them with the possible exception of Rei.  "What did it do to you?"

"Nothing," Takehiko murmurs, volume stifled by bafflement.  "It just... floated there, leaning around the lamppost.  But everything around it felt dark and cold.  And then."  He shudders, almost imperceptibly.  "And then it felt like I would never be happy again."

There's something childish and horrifying about the description.  Her stomach rolls.  "What happened next?"

"Somehow, it was like living it again.  All my sins and betrayals.  I saw it all from the outside, and I couldn't look away," Takehiko hisses, his spine rigid.  "I tried to ignore it, but I couldn't. I literally couldn't think of anything else."

Minako leans forward, means to reach out again.  "Then it was just like a nightmare."

He shakes his head. "I could hear the echoes."

She jerks to a stop, body and breath.  His nightmares have always been silent.  It's always disturbed him, the eerie quiet amidst the tableau of war and death.  But Minako has no trouble remembering her first year as a guardian, Sailor V and Sailor Venus, and she's had her own twisted dreams of their past life in loud and vivid technicolor.  She'd counted it as a blessing.  He didn't need to remember the chimera's howls.  The snap of bone beneath the blade.  People running screaming into the pyres to escape the wolves.  His prince's last breath.

"You were right," he gravels.  "It's worse."

"It's over now."

"No."

"It's gone.  The others are out looking for it right now.  It's not going to do this to anyone else.  We won't let that happen."

"I can still hear it.  The noise."  He swallows.  "I won't be able to stop it anymore."

If she could tear vapor, she would rip this thing apart.

Tossing caution aside, she leans forward and holds his head between her palms.  He tries to flinch away.  She will not allow it.  "Listen to me, then.  Listen to me.  He loves you.  He never blamed you for it, not once.  He's alive, and he knows you won't hurt him again."

He shakes her off like she's diseased.  No, like _he's_ diseased.  Like he's poison and she'll wither and fester if she gets too close.  "You don't understand."

"Then tell me."

He looks at her then, finally, straight on.  "It's you.  It's your death I'm hearing."

His eyes shine, wide and watery.  It breaks her heart a thousand times over.  She's never seen him cry.  Not after any nightmare, not after any injury no matter how painful, not even after Mamoru nearly died last year.  She wants to hold him.  She dares not reach for him again.

"Takehiko," she whispers, wishing his new name could be enough to drown out her death throes.

"I'll be all right," he assures her. To his credit or his detriment, he steels himself.  Granite and iron enough to make a man.  "I'll be able to ignore them eventually, but I can't... I can't have you touching me.  I don't think I can bear you in the room much longer."

She hopes she can bear being out of it.  "I love you."

"I don't deserve it," he answers, flat and certain.

She gets to her feet.  "I'm going to fix this.  I promise."

He believes.  He believes in her.  But still: "Not yet."

She doesn't want to say anymore, so she leaves.  She shuts the door again and leans against it.  The sturdiness keeps her off her knees.

"What happened?" Mamoru asks, his face immediately too close.  "What did he say?"

Minako curls her hands into fists to keep from physically pushing him away.  "Whatever it is, I think it makes you relive your worst memories.  He has a lot of those."

He looks horrified, but doesn't ask for details.  One point in his favor.  "Will he be all right?"

"Eventually."  Minako breathes.  In and out, and in and out again.  "He'll be able to talk to you eventually.  He's sorry he can't now."

Mamoru's expression changes, shifting into something on the edge of bitterness.  She has no patience for it.  "He talks to you."

"I'm not as important."

Silence fills the room like carbon monoxide, like silent death.

At least he looks chastened.  "I--"

"Don't understand.  I know.  Everyone knows.  The person you're in love with is the most important person to you."

 _'That's why the world ended that one time,'_ she thinks.  She bites her tongue to keep it back and hates the taste of blood.  Maybe she'll say it next time.

Chances are good it won't come up.

After all, they don't talk.

Mamoru changes the subject gracelessly.  She doesn't mind.  "I heard back from Ami.  They had a run in with it a few blocks north, but it didn't seem to hit anyone in her group as badly as Takehiko.  Or Haruka."

Minako flinches.  For all they don't get along, Haruka and the Shitennou know the weight of guilt across their backs.  "I take it she's down for the count."

"Michiru took her home."

So that's Michiru out as well.  "Did they kill it?"

"No."

She pushes off the door.

He grabs her arm before she can leave.  She's not sure which of them is more appalled by the action.  His grip slackens almost immediately, but he doesn't let go.  She owes him no courtesy, but for Usagi's sake, she doesn't break his hand.  "Where are you going?"

"You want a map?  'Cause I'm not that great with geography."

"I mean shouldn't you stay with him?"

God, he's an idiot.  "I swear, it's like you don't listen to a word I say.  He needs you right now, not me.  You're going to stay with him.  I'm going to take care of this."

He stares but lets her go, finally.  She stalks out of his apartment, leaves her bags behind.  She'll fetch them later, but for now, they have nothing more to say to each other.

She's off to kill this cold echo in the dark, and she will see it bleed.


End file.
